"OLPC" entries

Four short links: 1 November 2012

Four short links: 1 November 2012

Open Source Kickstarter, Long-Term Thinking, Inquiry Learning, and Progress Reports

  1. Selfstarter (Github) — open source roll-your-own crowdfunding platform. (Kickstarter has its own audience, of course, which why they could release their source-code and still be top of the heap)
  2. 100 Year Business Plan (Unlimited) — New Zealand Maori tribe has a 100-year business plan, reflecting their values of sustainability and continuity.
  3. Given Tablets, Kids Teach Themselves to Read (Mashable) — Story from two isolated rural villages with about 20 first-grade-aged children each, about 50 miles from Addis Ababa […] Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch … powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,” Negroponte said.
  4. snippets (Github) — mail out updates on coworker progress, a-la Google’s internal system. (via Pamela Fox)

About the Emerging Battles Over Textbooks: Options from Apple to Open Initiatives

Two dramatically opposed announcements from Apple and the state of California put the textbook publishing industry on notice recently that it could be facing rapid disruption. But open textbooks can't be created and altered as easily as open source software.

Four short links: 24 July 2009

Four short links: 24 July 2009

Copytweet, MacMarket iShare, Open Source Under Fire, and OLPC War Stories

  1. Are Tweets Copyright-Protected (WIPO) — According to an Internet posting on blogherald.com by Jonathan Bailey, every time a new communication technology emerges, it shifts the copyright landscape, and new copyright issues that do not fit existing intellectual property (IP) standards arise. With Twitter, for example, while its terms of service clearly state that tweeters own anything they post on the service, the 140-character limit to a Twitter post makes it almost impossible for the work to reach the level of creativity required for copyright protection. In the same vein, titles or short phrases usually cannot be protected since their length contributes to their lack of originality, as defined by copyright law. A roundup of the copyright issues raised by Twitter, which is a little like a roundup of the climate issues raised by ants.
  2. Apple Has 90% Revenue Share Of >$1000 Computers (Ars Technica) — wow. (via publicaddress on Twitter)
  3. Open Source on the BattlefieldFortunately, SFC Stadtler knew how to use open source software. Using found hardware, like a laptop pulled from the trash, and wires pulled from collapsed buildings, he was able to establish a wireless network between the towers and the home base. He was able to install freely available voice-over-ip software on this recycled hardware, which turned the computer into a wireless telephone. The soldiers were now able to communicate with each other and the home base. At no cost. (via Jim Stogdill)
  4. Sweet Nonsense Omelet (Ivan Krstić) — Horror stories from the inside about the shoddy suppliers of OLPC hardware. Thinking back, there’s a hardware incident I remember particularly fondly: one of our vendors sent us a kernel driver patch which enhanced support for their component in our machine. They chose to implement the enhancement by setting up a hole which allowed any unprivileged user to take over the kernel, prompting our kernel guy to send a private e-mail to the OLPC tech team demanding that, in the future, we avoid buying hardware from companies whose programmers are, direct quote, “crack-smoking hobos”.

ETech Preview: Why LCD is the Cool New Technology All Over Again

One of the things that the One Laptop Per Child project is best known for is the amazing transflective display technology that it utilized. Combining a traditional backlit color display with a black and white display that could be used outdoors, it both met the needs of low power usage and outdoor readability that is crucial in developing countries. When Mary Lou Jepsen, who developed the display for the XO, left to form Pixel Qi, the expectation was that some of the revolutionary engineering that was used in the XO would begin to make its way onto the broader consumer market. Since she’ll be talking at O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference in March, we decided to check in and see what she’s up to.

News Roundup: Apple vs. Kindle?, OLPC 2.0 as an E-Reader, B&N Studying Borders Acquisition

Will Apple Challenge the Kindle? Rex Hammock re-launches consideration of why Apple would give Amazon a run for ebook readers and content distribution: … a slightly larger iPod Touch [view concept image] linked to eBooks distributed via the iTunes store would match and raise the game with Amazon. (Continue reading.) Next Generation OLPC: E-Reader in Waiting? Laptop Mag has an…

Next Generation OLPC: E-Reader in Waiting?

Laptop Mag has an early look at the next-generation One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO-2, and the concept's book-like form factor is sure to turn a few heads in the e-reader world: [Nicholas] Negroponte didn't share many details about the XO-2's hardware, but the new system has two touch-sensitive displays. As you can see from the video and the pictures,…

What Would Your Ideal E-Reader Look Like?

Dedicated readers and repurposed laptops provide access to ebooks, but the ideal e-reader is still on the drawing board. So, what would your ideal e-reader look like?

Ebook Format Primer

Ebook readers support (or don't support) dozens of formats. Which ones have a future?